The Happiness Project: How To Be Happier

Interview With an (Imaginary) Hostile Reader

I got a big kick out of an anecdote recounted in Tara Parker-Pope’s recent New York Times story about getting along with your relatives over the holidays. Two cousins were facing separate difficult family dinners, and in anticipation, they organized a game:

Each made bingo cards, but instead of numbers, the squares were filled in with some of the negative phrases they expected to hear during the meal, like “That outfit is interesting” or “Your children won’t sit still.” As comments were made at the separate family celebrations, each woman would mark her card. “Whoever fills up a bingo row first,” Betsy said, “sneaks off to call the other and say, ‘Bingo!’ ”

What a great idea! By making a joke of it (one of my own happiness-project resolutions), these women reframed a challenging situation. The person with the most annoying relatives wins! The cousins could laugh at behavior that would ordinarily have driven them crazy.

When you realize that something is likely to make you unhappy, you can take steps to change your reaction—even if you can’t change the situation.

I did something similar myself. I’m extremely sensitive to any kind of criticism, and I dread hearing criticism of my book when it comes out in a few weeks (of course, being ignored would be worse … right?). Also, I think I can predict what some typical negative comments would be. But what could I do about that?

I decided to answer these imaginary critics myself. I wrote something called Interview With a Hostile Reader, in which I play both the part of the hostile reader who criticizes my book, and the part of myself, answering.

This exercise was hugely fun for me. I loved coming up with all the obvious hostile comments, and it was relief to get the chance to address them in a thoughtful, calm way. And it tickled me to think that if people do make these criticisms, if I do get a bad book review, I’ll be able to show a lack of originality—after all, I predicted and answered these criticisms, ahead of time! After all, it’s not that I didn’t foresee these criticisms of my book, but that I made these mindful, writerly choices nonetheless. For example, you can say it’s a cliché to write a “year of” book, but the fact is, it’s a very satisfying way to write and read a book. That’s why it’s a cliché! Zoikes, Thoreau did it!

Of course, I also remind myself to feel grateful, to enjoy the process, and all my other relevant happiness-project resolutions—but this particular exercise was particularly amusing, for some reason. It boosts my happiness right now and, I hope, in a possibly challenging future situation.

Now, I hesitated to post the link to the Interview With a Hostile Reader here, because if you read it, you’ll see the criticisms that a hostile reader or negative book reviewer might make. And maybe that will discourage you from wanting to read the book—which of course, I hope you’ll want to do. But oh well! I remember my First Commandment: Be Gretchen.

Have you found a way to make a joke of a difficult circumstance, or some other way to change your reaction to it? What worked for you?

 * I always find a lot of interesting posts to read over at LifeDev, "helping creative people create."

Learning About Happiness From Gwyneth Paltrow

Yesterday’s New York Times had an article from Bob Morris, "Martha, Oprah … Gwyneth?," about Gwyneth Paltrow’s emergence as a lifestyle guru.

I’m not interested in cooking, so I've paid no attention to Gwyneth Paltrow’s new PBS show with superchef Mario Batali, “Spain … on the Road Again,” but I had checked out her Web site Goop to see whether it had any useful happiness-project information. (I was mystified by the name; the article explained that G.O.O.P. are her initials.)

Goop has attracted a fair bit of mockery, and when asked about that criticism in an interview, Paltrow observed, “People get a hit of energy when they are negative about something.”

I was quite struck by the truth of this statement. I’d never thought about it that way before. Yes, she’s right, people do get a hit of energy when they’re negative about something.

Many of my happiness-project resolutions focus on trying to nudge me to being more positive and less critical: Give positive reviews, don’t talk about my aggravations, leave things unsaid, no gossip, cut people slack, be easy to please, have a heart to be contented, etc.

It turns out that it’s surprisingly difficult to be positive and enthusiastic—it’s tiring. And being critical does supply a jolt of energy. I don’t know why, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s true.

In the end, though, being overly critical doesn’t boost happiness much. Self-image is shaped in large degree by our actions, and somewhere each one of us has a little Jiminy Cricket doing an evaluation: “Spiteful, destructive, unenthuasiastic, querulous …” (On the other hand, I think some people pride themselves on being very critical, and it actually enhances their self-image. Hmmmm ... I need to think about this more.) At the same time, the more negative we are toward others, the more negative they are toward us. Have you noticed that people who are very gossipy and critical are often quite paranoid and defensive? There's a reason for that.

Paltrow’s observation—that being negative gives an energy hit—underscores a key point. When I’m tired, I’m far more likely to do things that drag on my happiness. I eat junk food, I speak too sharply to my family, I skip exercising, I don’t make the effort to help other people—neither strangers nor friends. And I’m more likely to be automatically negative.

I’ve become increasingly convinced about the importance of energy to happiness. When I started my happiness project, my first set of resolutions was aimed at boosting energy (get more sleep, exercise better, etc.—eventually I also largely quit drinking), because I figured I’m better able to keep my resolutions when I have more energy. I don’t need to write a snarky response to someone’s snarky comment on my blog or criticize someone’s parenting decisions or point out my husband’s shortcomings to him or pointlessly trash a book or movie to get that nasty hit of energy.

*Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just e-mail me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.